THE BACK AND FORTH ON DUNLAVY ST. 
Back in May some Montrose urbanists rejoiced at a report that city traffic planners were hoping to constrict Dunlavy St. from 4 lanes to 2. However, as part of this year’s annual Major Thoroughfare and Freeway Plan, the city’s planning commission advised widening the Dunlavy corridor’s right-of-way 10 feet in certain areas. In an e-blast to her constituents, city council’s Ellen Cohen cited a lack of public input on the widening proposal and its potential negative impact on homeowners as key factors in shaping her “grave concerns” over the prospect of a fattened corridor, so that proposal has been tabled until next year’s review. [Houston Chronicle; Ellen Cohen] Photo: Raj Mankad /OffCite
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Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
It’s moving time for house ghosts.
- Phillips 66 Switches Contractors for Its Corporate Campus Already Under Construction in Westchase [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot]
- South Carolina-Based Edens Investment Trust Will Pay $26.55 per Share for Uptown Park Owner AmREIT in Deal Valued at $763M [Houston Business Journal]
- Job Boom Helps Drive Up the Cost of Apartments Across the Region [Houston Chronicle]
- Fiesta Mart-Anchored Retail Center at FM 529 and Fry Road in Katy Set To Open in January [Prime Property]
- Chicago Deep-Dish Pizzeria Gino’s East Coming to The Woodlands, Willowbrook [Eater Houston]
- Liquid Gold Hospitality Group Proceeding with Plans for Webster El Tiempo Despite Lawsuit [Food Chronicles]
- Shuttered Polovina Restaurant Plans To Reopen Downtown [Eater Houston]
- The Story Behind the Family That Expanded Pappas Restaurants into One of the Largest Family-Owned Restaurant Chains [Houston Chronicle]
- Fourth Ward Residents Protest Plans To Dig Up Historic Freedmen’s Town Brick Streets; Leader Promotes Idea To Turn Area into Tourist Destination [Houston Chronicle]
- City May Spend More Than $1M from General Fund To Settle Red-Light Camera Lawsuit [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Dolce Living construction on West Gray: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
More Gorey than gory in its trimmings, a Queen Anne Galveston home — sporting a slight witch’s hat steeple atop a shingle-sided upper room — popped up on the market just before Halloween. It’s a double-lot property located on a corner 7 blocks from the beach on the East End of the island city. Was it around for the Great Storm of 1900?
On the Fringe
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TURNING HOUSTON INSIDE OUT 
“It might be that the best outcome for Houston is for the Inner Loop to have an exurban quality of life. Send commuter rail out to the suburbs — not for the suburbanites to commute to downtown — but for the Inner Loopers to commute outbound in the mornings to densely clustered (out of necessity) suburban tall office towers surrounding the stations, and then back into town in the evenings.
This is more viable than the traditional idea of New Urbanist suburbs with transit connecting them to a downtown core since politically none of Houston’s suburbs are on board with cultivating a small town ambience, but are ok with letting office builders do their thing.
To be sure, suburbanites would still commute to downtown but it will be seen as an aberration. Downtown will still have things to do after dark, but other areas of the Inner Loop, connected by LRT/buses/cars/bikes/sidewalks, will do a much better job of providing the QOL aspiring exurbanites may crave.
Suburbanites will, of course, still commute to a large extent to the office towers in their suburb. But they will do so by car, and won’t care about the urbanist quality of life (in other words, nothing will change for them).” [anon22, commenting on Here’s the Freshest Satellite Photo of Downtown Houston You’ll See All Day] Illustration: Lulu
The owner of the property at the southeast corner of Kirby Dr. and North Blvd. has indicated he might attempt to evict the Wendy’s franchise whose operator appears to have ordered the nighttime removal of 6 oak trees on public property surrounding the fast-food outlet earlier this week. Lias J. “Jeff” Steen, the property’s landlord, says he sent an email saying “I am extremely disappointed he took down the trees under cover of darkness . . . And I am looking at terminating our lease,” according to a report by abc13’s Deborah Wrigley.
Removed ‘in Good Faith’
Headed to that spooky Halloween “party” at 3015 Fuqua St. tonight all the kool kids are daring each other about today on Twitter? Here are a few things you should know about what might rank as one of Houston’s eeriest properties still standing, one complete with both its very own murder and a ghost video.
Our chilling tale begins in early February 2008, when the property was last on the market. Back then vandals held sway at the decrepit 11,640-sq.-ft. mansion in Minnetex Place. Was it Swamplot’s showcasing of the home’s skanky indoor pool, 5-acre lot, decorative graffiti, and grand, red-carpeted staircase that made it move? It had languished on the market for 7 months, but just 2 weeks later, the property sold — to an entity controlled by a pair of Houston investors. They snagged the 1950 mansion for just $265,000 — greatly reduced from its original $451,900 listing.
Since then, visiting vandals have been joined by a new, possibly otherworldly tenant.
Fuqua’s Ghost?
Finding a seat in the latest round of musical chairs among Houston’s theater crowd is the Classical Theatre Company, which recently announced it is moving operations into the 175-seat Chelsea Market venue vacated by Main Street Theater earlier this year. For the previously nomadic CTC, the space means a more permanent home for its artists and audiences — as well as a single spot for its offices, storage, rehearsals, and performances.
Main Street Theater, which has a Rice Village venue on Times Blvd. readying for a long-awaited renovation, had rented the Chelsea Market space for its Theater for Youth and educational programming since 1996. Youth activities shifted recently to the Talento Bilingue de Houston center at 333 S. Jensen Dr. That move had been prompted by the kickoff of work on the recently re-christened 20-story apartment project fronting Chelsea Blvd. (The Carter, formerly known as Chelsea Montrose), which took a big bite out of a once-extensive parking area.
Stage Shuffle
Clearing out the Addicks Dam subdivision — and other coming disappearances:
- Simon Premium Outlets Eying 192-Acre Texas Instrument Site on Southwest Fwy. for New Outlet Mall Called Legacy [Culturemap]
- Toll Brothers Developing 692-Acre Woodson’s Reserve Community on Route of New Grand Pkwy. Extension Near ExxonMobil Campus [Realty News Report]
- New Children’s Nature Park at Buffalo Bayou To Feature 33-Ft. Slide Down the Banks, 3-Level Tree House [Houston Chronicle]
- El Tiempo Suing Licensee in Charge of Derailed Webster Location; Says It’s No Longer Involved in Opening [Food Chronicles]
- Polovina Italian Cafe on Washington Ave Locked Out by Landlord for Not Paying Rent; Owner Opening New Restaurant Across the Street [Eater Houston]
- Good Dog Houston Tired of James Coney Island Reps Not-So-Discreetly Inspecting and Taking Photos of Its Hot Dogs [Eater Houston]
- TxDOT Cutting Back Carpool and Toll Lane Plans for U.S. 290 Widening [Houston Chronicle]
- Rural Landowners Along Proposed Route for Dallas-to-Houston High-Speed Rail Project Feel Left Out of the Loop [Houston Public Media]
- Texas Joins 15 Other States That Have Decided To Stop Installing Possibly Dangerous Guardrail [Click2Houston]
- Gulf Coast Water Authority Pursuing Ways To Buy More Water [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Pasadena Homeowner Shared House for Years with Thousands of Bees [KHOU]
- The Bellewood Dr. House with Computer-Controlled Lights, 4 Miles of Cable and 3 Air Compressors’ Worth of Halloween Decorations [KHOU]
Photo of Fourth Ward townhouses and Downtown: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
- 424 W. 32nd St. [HAR]
Sure, these days with Google Maps and other available sources, we’re all pretty accustomed to seeing recent satellite images of our city. Does that make seeing a moments-ago fresh-from-the-camera view of Houston sent directly to you (and maybe 354,400 or so other Twitter followers) by an astronaut hanging out on the International Space Station less of a thrill? If not (or even if so), behold: Here’s an overhead view of downtown Houston taken just “a little bit ago,” sent by low-earth-orbiting astronaut Reid Wiseman this afternoon.
- Downtown #Houston a little bit ago [Reid Wiseman on Twitter]
Photo: NASA/Reid Wiseman
Someone Was Watching Over You
If portions of this open-plan Woodshire mod look a bit like a stage set (top), that was likely the idea. The 1957 custom designed pad, by architects Dunaway & Jones, was for Joseph T. Finkelstein, the co-founder and former president of the Alley Theatre (and a former actor in New York). Although the double lot’s landscaped scenery has gone a bit shaggy between acts, the overall swank factor still appears intact. Earlier this week, a re-re-relisting dropped the period property’s asking price down to $549,500.
Scene Stealer
Two brothers who have opened a new agricultural venture in Houston’s East End are billing it as Houston’s “first private farm inside the 610 Loop.” Amid the gritty industrial wilds of N. Greenwood St. between Navigation and Canal — just a few blocks south of Buffalo Bayou’s Turkey Bend —Finca Tres Robles (spelled out and illustrated helpfully in the photo above) now sprouts on land owned by Electro-Coatings, a plating company. Other less bucolic neighbors, such as Baker Oil Tools and the US Zinc Houston Dust Plant, lurk nearby.
Until its 1996 purchase by Electro-Coatings (along with a warehouse owned by Sara Lee), the 1.2-acre plot now occupied by the farm served as a TxDOT service site. It lay vacant for the last 18 years. Beginning 6 or 7 months ago, the new proprietors jackhammered away the vestigial asphalt; they’ve since composted the lot and commenced agricultural operations.
Here’s the plan:
Finca Tres Robles
The City of Houston intends to proceed with legal action in connection with the overnight disappearance of half a dozen oak trees from the public right-of-way surrounding the Wendy’s drive-thru at 5003 Kirby Dr., according to 2 separate sources. The trees were chopped down and ground up on site under cover of darkness Tuesday night as part of a renovation of the fast-food spot, which sits at the corner of Kirby and North Blvd. The removals took place on city property, but had not been permitted by the city.
“I have already been assured by the City of Houston’s enforcement officer that the city intends to proceed with a civil case,” writes Trees for Houston executive director Barry Ward in an email sent to members of the canopy-enhancement organization this morning. He calls plans to pursue legal action “a continuation of the recent, positive trend by the current administration to put an end to illegal tree removal in the City right-of-way or on city property.”
$150K for More Sunlight
